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Aug. 21, 2020 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:37
Congressman Thomas Massie Rebukes The Counterfeiting Fed & Reckless Political Spending

Politicians are spending money (that they don’t have) like never before. Bailouts, “Stimulus,” and Welfare for everyone are the only game in town. The great enabler, the Federal Reserve, counterfeits dollars by the trillions! The failure of "planning" cannot be more obvious! Representative Thomas Massie sounds off in opposition to the madness on today's Liberty Report!

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Time Text
Why We Left COVID 00:04:48
Hello, everyone, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is co-host is Chris Rossini.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And Chris, we have a very special guest today.
He's been on our program once or twice before, but he's one of our favorites.
And he's holding the fort for us, doing his best up in Washington.
And somebody asked me once, well, today in an interview, how did you manage to stay in the swamp?
But Thomas Massey is with us, and he's an optimist, so he'll probably have a better answer than I did how he manages the swamp.
But before we go into that, Thomas, we want to welcome you to the program, and delighted to have you back.
Well, thanks for having me on, Ron.
People ask me how I hang in there, and I say I hang in there like a hare and a biscuit.
There you go.
Which says nothing redeeming about myself.
I said it was self-deprecating once, and Trey Gowdy told me, no, it's unsanitary.
But I think it sort of depicts the tenacity that you got to have to hang into Congress.
Well, you're doing well, but your attitude helps.
You know, coming across with a little bit of optimism and not being dire is a good practice.
So we like that.
But, you know, we want to talk about how you plan to balance the budget next month.
And they're going to tell you, you're going to get to fix the budget and solve all our spending problems.
But before that, there's another little problem floating around from my viewpoint unnecessarily.
And that has to do with the coronavirus and the lockdown and what this means.
But tell us a little bit about how you handle this, what you think of lockdown.
How does it affect you personally?
What has it done to your people in the district?
What's it like in Congress?
But you don't have to give us all the details on that because we can spend a lot of time.
But just give us an idea of what you think is going on and how you handle it.
Well, I just learned a week or two ago that I have the antibodies.
Yeah.
And so then we had my wife tested because we thought, well, if I've got them, she has to have them.
And sure enough, she has the antibodies.
Wow.
And so it turns out we've both already had COVID and gotten over it, likely in January.
I was very sick from January 3rd to January 7th.
And then my wife was sick about a week after that.
And that's the only time we've had any symptoms.
I got the actual titer of my antibodies, and it says that my level is 960.
And 320 is considered significant enough to donate plasma if you were able to.
So I've got a strong level of antibodies.
I believe I had it in January, and I feel somewhat ridiculous for being afraid to the degree that I was for the last six months.
I mean, it's always good to wash your hands and take precautions even in a normal scenario.
But I really feel kind of silly now.
And I would just say I would like for us to know more about this virus because the fear of the unknown is the worst thing.
And my whole take on this is that we need fewer lockdowns, fewer restrictions on liberty, and just protect the nursing homes.
Because even in Kentucky, over half the fatalities or deaths from this virus have been in nursing homes.
So let's work on the things that we can prevent or possibly prevent.
And then everybody else needs to get back to normal.
Here in Kentucky, they've delayed our schools again.
They're not going to have in-person learning for a few more months.
So I think it's really sad for the children, too.
Well, I just hope this makes you exempt from any compulsory vaccination in a couple months.
They're rushing it through.
They want to test it on people.
So with that immunity that you have developed more naturally, may turn out to be a very good benefit for you.
So that's one advantage that you might have.
Well, you know, they can stick a needle in me over my cold dead body.
If I take it, it will be voluntarily.
I've never had a flu shot, but I have taken other vaccines.
When I travel overseas, I estimate that the risk of contracting the virus overseas may be greater than the risk of any complication for the vaccine.
So I took it.
But with other vaccines, I don't take them, and it should be everybody's choice going forward, in my opinion.
Congressman On Inflation And Economy 00:15:36
Well, what's the reaction in the district?
Are the people, if you had to guess where the polls are in your district, would most people say, oh, this is very important, and I'm glad they're making us wear a mask because that's protecting us.
Or are some people getting a little bit annoyed with it and would rather go back to school?
The goodwill of the people in Kentucky's 4th District is wearing thin.
The governor has really overplayed his hand.
They've shut down school sports this fall, and that may be the straw that breaks the campus back.
Now, that's good.
Now, I want to really get over into the subject of how we're going to balance our budget, which is a daydream or a nightmare or whatever.
Chris, do you have a question about our monetary system or this budget for the Congressman?
Yes, great to speak with you, Congressman.
I want to point out the heroic deed that you did several months ago, standing on principle against the stimulus bailouts, and you were exactly right.
It was a major ripoff.
And while Washington did not like it, your constituents did, and we did, and anybody that loves liberty did.
The thing about welfare stimulus bailouts is they're very easy to give, but very hard to take away.
And with the economy in the shape that it's in, with so many businesses that are not going to come back and millions, tens of millions unemployed, you know, there are people on the left that I'm sure you're aware of that want a universal basic income.
Is it possible that we could be stumbling into such a disastrous policy unwillingly with the Republican administration, but that perhaps someday the Democrats could implement?
Well, I think unwittingly, a lot of Republicans signed up for universal basic income.
The Democrats were pushing for $2,000 a month, but under the bailout package, they actually got $2,400 a month because if you didn't work, you received $600 a week, and so that was $2,400 a month.
You had that universal basic income.
And the minimum wage, if you think about $600 divided by 40 hours, even before you consider state unemployment, there was a $15 minimum wage.
And people wouldn't go back to work because they could make more at home if, you know, and in a lot of cases, the state unemployment plus the federal unemployment put them at about $20 minimum wage.
And it was devastating to small businesses here.
As you said, a lot of them are not going to reopen.
I've seen some of these economic reports recently.
And if you're in the business of repairing broken windows, you're in one of the bright spots of the economy.
For those who are fans of the broken window fallacy, for instance, they point to new housing starts and say, look at this, 22% up the new housing starts.
But those are the people who are fleeing the cities that are going to collapse because they have no tax base.
The productive citizens are getting out of there because of social unrest and also because of the increased chance that you'll catch a virus in the city.
So you can point to little things like that.
You know, at the sporting goods store, people stand and wait for the truck to show up so they can buy a kayak or fishing tackle now.
And so they're doing great because a lot of people are out of work or can't go to their fitness center.
But all that fitness equipment in those fitness centers is basically going to rot into the ground as the governors keep the economy shut down.
So what I'm saying is you can find little bright spots in the economy.
And particularly because there was a $1,200 injection of cash to nearly everybody in the United States.
I know several multi-millionaires who received the $1,200 checks.
In fact, I know a Norwegian citizen who hasn't lived in the United States since 1974, who got a $1,200 check mailed to Oslo, Norway by virtue of the fact that in the 60s and 70s, he worked in the United States and paid income tax.
So, yeah, we've injected, we've temporarily injected some artificial money into the economy.
And so it looks good right now, but it ain't good.
And there are going to be ramifications.
Yeah, that's for sure.
And Thomas, you know that I've been interested in the monetary issue for a long, long time.
And people now are talking about, well, when's the inflation coming?
When's the inflation coming?
And I have a chart that is very dramatic that shows where the inflation is.
And I have a slightly different opinion about measurement of inflation.
And that is I look towards the Federal Reserve and what they're doing with the money supply.
And this chart shows that the money supply is soaring in this last six months or so because of all the spending and all the bailouts and all that they're doing.
And it's rising now at historic rates of 20% per year.
And that means that the only way you can keep that going is by expanding that.
It becomes an addiction.
That's what's happening right now.
So there's tremendous inflation.
Other people argue, well, inflation is the CPI.
Well, it is, that is a result of the inflation.
The real problem is increase in the money supply, diluting the value of the money.
And that's what we're looking at now.
So is there, I see in Congress that they have a new caucus come out of the Congressional Sound Money Caucus.
I hope that's encouraging.
But at the same time, there's this modern monetary theory, which is very much engaged right now.
So what do you see in the future for this?
Do you think that do you anticipate that you'll ever see a reduction in net spending in our government?
No, there's not going to be any reduction until people quit loaning us money, at which point we'll probably just start printing it.
And so I think it's a good idea that my colleague Warren Davidson started the Sound Money Caucus.
He and I have been commuting back and forth between D.C.
I give him a ride in my car now since the airline options have been limited.
And so he's told me about that caucus.
It sounds like a good idea.
I haven't joined it yet because the government is ruining our own money and we need to have other alternatives in order to have a functioning economy.
And to your point on inflation, yes, the money supply has gone up dramatically, but something else has also happened that's going to exacerbate inflation.
Production of appliances and automobiles stalled for a few months.
So the pipeline of goods in the economy has been severely restricted.
And so now you've got more money chasing fewer goods.
And that's going to exacerbate inflation, too.
Right.
Chris?
Congressman, I'm sure you're aware of monetary history that fiat money always fails.
It has a perfect record of failure.
And I even know from my own family, my Polish grandparents during the war, they threw cash into the fireplace.
That's how worthless it was.
And, you know, we've seen why I'm our Germany.
And I always thought to myself, why didn't they just stop printing?
Why couldn't they stop themselves?
You know, when we look today, we almost see that kind of mentality in action, that it's just print the money.
Now, the Polish did not have a worldwide currency like the dollar, so we don't have to worry about throwing our money in the fireplace yet, but the same economics apply to our situation.
What do you think of the mentality of the Congress that you see around you?
Do they really think that you can just counterfeit money forever?
They certainly do now.
I mean, we've added $4 trillion to the debt.
That's like a six-month deficit just for these COVID relief packages.
Think about this.
Take $4.35 trillion and divide it by 435 congressional districts.
That's $10 billion per congressional district that we have spent.
That needs to come back out of that congressional district.
I can't find $10 billion of money that's been delivered to my congressional district, but I know that $10 billion has to come out of my congressional district in order to pay that back.
Let's look at it a different way.
Use the number $3 trillion of spending here recently by Republicans, by the way.
They're just willingly and gladly printing and borrowing this money.
$3 trillion divided by 3,000 counties.
That's a billion dollars per county.
That's what we're on the hook for now.
And the predominance of this cash hasn't gone to the middle class or low income.
It's gone to the upper echelons of society to prop up the stock market.
In fact, I've said the $1,200 is the cheese in the trap.
And this is a socialistic or actually more of a cronyism trap.
The reason they didn't care that $1.4 billion of those checks went to dead people is because they went to their estates and their heirs were able to cash them and spend them in many cases.
Some of it was direct deposit.
They didn't care about the people.
They just wanted the money in the economy so that they could prop up the stock market for longer.
Thomas, on your colleagues, Republicans or Democrats or leadership or whatever, do you ever sense that subtly they have more respect for an individual like yourself than they ever want to admit?
They almost have to hide it.
Do you suspect do you receive some of this?
There was times when I, you know, I wasn't cooperating with leadership, and I think you're in a similar situation.
But I always sense and thought, maybe I was just a dreamer, that there was some respect for our views.
I was wondering if you've ever experienced that.
And how many other people in the Congress subtly really agree with what you're saying, but they just sort of throw up their hands and they feel overwhelmed.
They're not just overwhelmed, they're afraid.
And I've had colleagues tell me that, like the really honest ones.
We had one individual stood up in our GOP conference in front of 150 other Republicans and said, we all should have been standing with Thomas on March 27th.
He said, but frankly, I was afraid.
And he said, I'm embarrassed I wasn't standing with him, but I was afraid.
And I think that's sort of the sentiment.
A lot of people were afraid of public opinion, afraid of being blamed if something bad happened.
But the reality is something bad happened.
Here's the other thing, Ron.
On March 27th, the reason I stood up for the Constitution, by the way, it wasn't just about this bill.
It's about whether you can pass bills with nobody being there, with your leadership telling you to stay home.
They're actively, when they're telling you to stay home, that they're going to pass a $2 trillion bill, they're subverting the Constitution.
And I felt a few days before that that our country was really at the brink and we were about to go over the brink.
And my greatest fear is what motivated me, Ron.
This is my farm behind me.
I was afraid that maybe 10 years from now when the world's gone to hell, I'd be back on this farm, like remembering that there was a day that I could do something and I didn't do anything.
You'd have to have me on suicide watch 10 years from now if I hadn't done it.
So it wasn't really about being brave as much as it was being afraid of living with myself if I didn't do it, you know, and having to live with myself for the rest of my life.
Right.
Chris?
Yes, I have one last question for the congressman.
Whenever there's an economic downturn, it's a knee-jerk reaction.
Capitalism always gets the blame.
And on this show, we try to point out the difference between real free market capitalism and the government corporation marriage cronyism that we have.
And, you know, it's been a part of our country since the beginning.
It was championed by Alexander Hamilton and then later Lincoln and FDR and many presidents after.
And it's a bipartisan deal.
Both parties are involved in this corporatism.
On this show, we say we need a big divorce in this country between governments and corporations.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, well, let's just use an example of the airlines, for instance.
They're capitalists.
The stockholders are capitalists while they're making money, but then they want to socialize their losses or their risks.
So right now, it's not like all those airplanes caught on fire or were destroyed in a storm.
All of that capital is still there, and there will be valid business models.
Now, they're going to be different going forward.
But what they need to do is go out in the market and raise more capital.
Now, they don't want to do that because it will dilute their stock.
And the stock is a representation of who's going to get the future profits from those investments.
So they've been the benefactor of all the past profits.
What they don't want to give up is future profits by going back into the capital market and raising the funds that it's going to take to keep them afloat through this economic downturn.
So there's an example.
And so they've come to Congress and they say, we're too big to fail.
We're too important.
And so you need to bail us out.
And I kind of hate to pick on the airlines because you can see this in virtually every industry where they're coming with their hands out and saying, you know, help us out.
Even the Chamber of Commerce is lobbying me now because they were left out of the bailouts, the PPP.
And what I've told the chamber is commerce is help me fight for commerce.
Instead of you guys getting in the welfare line, because you're supposed to ostensibly represent capitalism and commerce, help me fight our governor in his war against commerce.
But no, they're lobbying me so that they can get the bailouts.
It's almost like this sense of corporate apathy where the corporations are like, you know what?
Let's just get what we can get from the government.
You know, I think what Chris has asked is very important because it has a political implication that's very important.
Because, you know, in the Depression in the 30s, you know, Roosevelt ran as a conservative and pro-gold standard and all that kind of stuff.
And then he did exactly the opposite.
And the real blame, the intellectuals that were advising Roosevelt said, well, the problem was all this capitalism that we had in the 20s, not the inflation by the Federal Reserve, but the capitalism and that gold standard.
They wouldn't let us print the money.
But it's almost very similar to that at a different stage.
And this is what I think Chris is getting at: they're going to put more blame on the principles that were pretty weak.
Beacon of Liberty 00:03:01
But I think the separation of this and pointing out that it's too much money, too much printing.
And the other thing that is hard to galvanize is with the people.
But you pointed it out, Thomas, because of the airlines, they come.
It's the demand.
But just who isn't on the demand now?
The individuals on the demand?
They're trying hard to prevent what happened after the housing bubble burst because the mortgage companies made out and the banks made out, but people lost their homes.
But here we are back in this.
They're trying to.
But even these trillions, you point out there's trillions and trillions of dollars already spent, and it isn't working.
And yet they're going to still say it opens up the door for those so-called Marxists.
I mean, those Marxists, you know, they come along and see how much freedom fails.
And all this capitalism, what we need to change.
So I think this is the big political issue.
But where can we get our help from our Republican leadership?
And you nailed it right on the nail by saying to those people coming, why don't you come here and ask us for your commerce freedom?
And maybe we would get somewhere.
So you're doing a good job on that.
Well, listen, hopefully my race, my primary, where I came out of it, I won 82% of the vote against a well-funded establishment type Republican who was backed by my colleagues in Congress.
And the president came out against me because I didn't go along with the $2 trillion package.
He wanted me thrown out of the party.
But we're on the other side of that.
And I think a lot of my colleagues, to your point before, Ron, who were scared, now realize that you can stand up for the right thing.
And you can get reelected, not by a small margin, but by an overwhelming margin.
And I hope the new crop of freshmen who are coming into Congress can see that too.
There are eight members of Congress who lost their primaries, eight incumbents.
That hasn't happened since 1974.
So the people are getting out there.
They're turning over the members of Congress.
There'll be more turnover in the general election.
And if anything, I hope I can be a beacon to the freshmen who are coming in.
So when they have that moment of, you know, if I stand on principle, is that a foolhardy thing to do because I won't be coming back to Congress?
No, you can stand on principle and you can get re-elected.
Okay, Thomas, that's a good place for us to end because we have to move along.
But I think you can be assured a lot of people look to you as being a beacon for liberty.
So we thank you very much for that.
And we appreciate very much you being on the program today.
Thanks, Ron, and thanks for being the beacon for me that encouraged me to come to Congress and join the fight.
Very good.
And I want to talk to our viewers today and appreciate them very much for turning in today.
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